I ran my first practice for a while tonight. While I am an assistant college soccer coach, I don’t plan and run those practices. I don’t own those practices the way I do when coaching a team of my own. Even when I did a training session recently for a U-10 girls’ team, it was somewhat awkward as in the back of my mind I was thinking ‘this isn’t my team, I wonder how they’re comparing me to their coach, how much should I push them when I’m not getting the results I want, etc.’ on top of the normal concerns like ‘is this space big enough, is the game offering too little resistance for the best players, etc.’ So needless to say I prefer being the head coach in charge as opposed to an assistant or a trainer (running practices for a team where you’re not the usual head coach). Both being an assistant or trainer have their merits, but I prefer being able to plan everything out to the nth degree whenever possible.

Ignoring the training session I ran for the girls’ team several weeks back, I hadn’t really planned and run a training session since last spring when I was coaching high school JV girls. Even then I was really more of a trainer since I didn’t go to all practices or games, so going further back to fall of ‘06 was the last time I had control of the whole process from start to finish. There’s definitely a different pressure I put on myself to make sure everything goes off without a hitch. With the college team I know what to expect and have a good idea of how I can contribute at each practice (although i’m learning more and improving in this regard all the time). To top it off, I haven’t worked with this age group before (U-10 boys). So I was a bit unsure what to expect.

Everything turned out pretty well. It was definitely hectic controlling the whole group of eighteen players, which was further compounded by the fact that half of them were the ‘B’ team of this age group (I’m the head coach for the ‘A’ team and the trainer for the ‘B’). I felt fairly unprepared for this group a couple of weeks ago so I bought a book called Coaching Under 10s which is written by a guy involved with the KNVB, the Dutch equivalent of the USSF. The book proposes a ‘circuit model’ which basically entails setting up two activities to run simultaneously and then having the players rotate after twenty minutes. In this way it’s easier to set up and explain everything to the group and gets everyone on task much faster. The only clean up involved is removing some cones and you already have a field assembled for the next activity. I’ve already been doing the last part on my own, but it’s good advice. The downside is that the coach and players are generally more familiar with a system where the coach runs a single activity for the whole group and has a bit more control over making coaching points. I think the circuit model is supposed to aid in players learning from each other and playing with somewhat less structure/involvement from the coach so as not to suppress their natural curiosity/instincts.

I have to admit that I liked the circuit model after using it tonight. While I still had to go around and re-explain rules of each game (which this model is supposed to eliminate), the players were able to get on with it by themselves pretty well. The guys assisting me really helped out and everyone seemed to get into the flow pretty naturally. I definitely liked having things set up and planned out as too much time off task is really bad for this age. It was really easy to step in and out of the small groups (each activity consisted of no more than eight players) and provide instruction without really interrupting anything too much, which can be difficult with the more traditional method of coaching. That being said, I think this would work almost exclusively for individually focused skill and tactic work. For team or even group tactics, I’d like to be more involved and see everything as the coach instead of seeing bits and pieces from each group. I also found that the players didn’t seem to like the one activity which provided little opportunity for rest (mental or physical). But they loved the one where they were basically in line (although getting a high number of repetitions as the line was only about four players deep) and got the chance to execute a skill, receive feedback and go at it again thirty seconds later. The other activity ended up with players stopping or going half speed maybe because they couldn’t focus for that long. I’ll have to keep that in mind for next time. I plan on using this style of coaching again, but will gradually use different exercises and probably do some practices where the whole group stays together so I can have some more control over them. Maybe I’ll only do that rarely if I think I’m getting good results. And if you’re lucky to have multiple assistants (I have two who are knowledgeable, quite good for U10s), it’s the best way to utilize their talents as well. They don’t feel awkward stopping the activity or a player and giving feedback, which can feel strange when one person is running the whole show.

The DVD portion of the book is decent, basically provides video of Dutch players doing the activities and being coached by Erwin Koeman. They seem really under control and focused for him! I guess I just need to become a professional coach…or let the players know that if they don’t work hard everyday then they’re gone at the end of the year, haha. On an unrelated note I just bought two other books, Zone Play by Angelo Pereni and Michele Di Cesare and Developing Game Intelligence by Horst Wein. The first book looks like an extremely thorough discussion of modern tactics and how zonal play throughout the whole field dominates those tactics. It’s written in 1998, so it might be a bit outdated, but I imagine 90% of the principles are applicable. The modern game has really only increased in speed somewhat and degree of defensive mindedness in those years I believe. Already learned some things about defending, I think it’s a book that will take a while to digest but will offer a ton of info. Wein’s book is supposed to be pretty awesome, judging from what I’ve read about it (which is limited). All about activities and coaching to help players understand the game. Maybe through reading it I can have a small part in ensuring that the next generation of American players aren’t ‘tactically naive’ compared to their Euro or South American counterparts. Hopefully I’ll be able to read them and provide reviews in the not too distant future.

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